The book was recommended on one of the rs subs. The first half is enjoyable — a Californian self-conscious writer starts her midlife crisis with an aborted road trip, and it goes as far as a midlife crisis should go, i.e., enough to threaten her life and reality. And it is funny.

It devolves into something else in the second half: a long rationalization of her choices (because she wants to get back to her life, and she has to make it accept what she brings back from that trip.) Eventually, everything is explained away by outside forces (perimenopause made her do it), and no one accepts responsibility for much.

That could be fine, but the narrator seems to be weaving a lot of stuff to convince herself rather than the reader. It is too similar to your friend talking at length about her decision to go poly. It is not so much about sharing an experience as her trying to gauge her ability to fool herself by fooling you in a café.

(Isn't that often the case with autofiction? Good and interesting premises born out of the edges of normalcy are interrupted by reality getting a firm grip on the writer. She can't escape, and we're just left watching her wrestle in the mud, getting out of it with a hesitant smile, expecting some validation for a dubious victory and a very boring fight).

So, it's a mid-life crisis, followed by the long swallowing of uncomfortable, ordinary lies to get back to whatever stage is on the hero's journey at that point.